HubBroker- The Complexity of B2B Partner Onboarding

Partner Onboarding’ is not a very new term, but it has become pretty crucial over the past few years. The term is quite popular, but still, many people do not know what it actually means and the processes it includes. So in this blog, we will discuss a few vital things to tell you about partner onboarding in a B2B ecosystem and why it has become as much a human process as a technical challenge.

While onboarding partners, a good amount of time is spent on B2B systems, which is why organizations consider it a large part of their projects. Typically, people related onboarding as a technical process, but in our analysis, we found that it has a human interaction aspect.

So here are a few things we would like to discuss onboarding partners and why we believe it has a human aspect.

Creating the Process

The above picture shows the stripped-down of B2B connections. The handling of the partners’ demand (e.g., Purchase Order) is done all the while and afterward sent through to a back-end system. There is a degree of safety to guarantee that the partner can send their request through to that system.

Presently, the ability for a particular partner’s document archive to be handled isn’t what we would depict as a component of the onboarding system because the process that the partner is utilizing is ideally pretty much as nonexclusive as expected.

In reality, this isn’t generally so natural; some of the Trading partner onboarding torment is in the process as well, which we’ll show in a moment.

Specific data should be traded while connecting with the partner to the process. This data changes relying upon how enormous the provider of the service is. If the provider is a huge organization like Walmart, then, at that point, Walmart can direct to every one of its partners the connection details of the service (Walmart is the boss for this case). However, if the supplier of the service cannot direct the details of the partner communication, then, at that point, they must be more accommodating with regards to what kinds of communication types they will acknowledge from their partners.

In simpler terms, communication among partners and process includes such things as:

• Network Communication Protocols

This is the actual course of connecting. Thus, things like whether the communication is over FTP, HTTP, SOAP, REST, and so forth become possibly the most important factor here and what those details are (for example, IP addresses). We’d all use a similar protocol in an optimal world, yet in reality, records and documents are regularly transported via FTP and HTTP.

• Security 

When the organization’s points of interest have been worked out, the partner is empowered for security (for example, maybe share public and private keys) or set up an area on an FTP server that no one but they can access.

• Archive Type 

After everything has been sorted out and agreed then the real document type must be considered. Once more, if you’re a Walmart, you could because all of your partners communicate with you utilizing ANSI X12 only as prescribed by you. But, if you are a smaller provider of a service, you will be unable to limit the formats so much, and you might have to adjust to whatever your partners use today with their other providers.

Partner Portals 

Frequently, in B2B systems, the partner needs to understand how their request is progressing. In such cases, a partner solution enables which fronts the process, so the partner approaches that data. Such entries should be designed so that each partner sees their own specific information.

Mapping

Beforehand, we said that the process at the back-end once in a while needs to change contingent upon who the partner is. Frequently, in B2B systems, this is approximately named as Mapping. However, there are different aspects as well.

Mapping refers to the change of the incoming report design with the goal that it can be processed by the back-end system. For example, Incoming EDI to active SAP IDoc. As we featured above, we usually like all partners to utilize a similar incoming document format; however, that doesn’t happen frequently. Generally, partners will have some different documents that they are sending in, and these must be mapped to the fields they are indicating that the process needs. This is the reason, in B2B, mapping is a major issue!

Moreover. mapping documents designs that can also happen is that various partners send in subsets of the document set. In these cases, it should be ensured that the document comprehends which partner sends in what type of format and handle any exceptional cases.

Time Spent

Collaboration of all the elements together, we have the following points that onboarding comprises of:

Exchanging Information

• What network systems do the process support and organizational details (for example, IP address)

• What document types do the partner support and any partner-specific use cases

• What progress data and cautions do the partner expect about records they have sent

Changes required 

• Set up particular partner regions (for example, FTP locales)

• Trade public and private keys

• Uncover qualifications and partner-specific areas

• Modify process to deal with partner-specific document types or deviations from the standard

• Modify process to deal with partner-specific process use cases

• Configure partner portal to permit client access

• Configure partner portal back-end to permit client access

• Correspondence, correspondence, correspondence

Communication and Just Communication

Although this may not seem as though a ton of work for a single partner, such clients we manage have many partners. In this way, simply dealing with the sheer amount of information and traded data is a pain; never mind doing the work. We also find that the client doesn’t communicate in a similar language all through their organization.

This is the place where the B2B onboarding process comes in. A genuine issue here is more to do with taking care of the amount of data and individuals involved than the actual technical issue of, e.g., sharing keys.

This is the reason we believe B2B partner onboarding is basically as much a communication issue as a technical one. Basically, a decent B2B portal needs a proper B2B onboarding system. It needs to communicate in the correct language when managing the diverse partner employees and later interpret those back into the language that the B2B solution understands. The onboarding system likewise should be transparent regarding where each partner is in the flow of getting connected to ensure that each partner is overseen through the onboarding system and not lost in it.

So to summarize, trading partner onboarding is undoubtedly not only about technical challenges, and a quick and efficient onboarding requires a defined organizational process with clear responsibilities and milestones. A critical thinking partner like HubBroker can help you implement the best integration and B2B onboarding tools and procedures, which can optimize your B2B ecosystem and onboarding time.

At HubBroker, we are ready to help your business grow and succeed. Let’s get started today.